In between art making, sculpture in words are created.
This is a blog dedicated to the treads connecting my activities in, out or around studio practices. Once a while, exhibition related news are posted if the news itself is sculptural enough!

gummi Chandelier ii in detail

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The book that broke my reluctance to social with people is The Book of Luck. While I was translating it last year, it showed me tremendous amount of dead corners which I was not able to see in myself.

One of the principle is to network with people from all walks of like. Not because I will need them in the future, but because they are my lenses to see the world. When I'm in the extroverted mode, I hold genuine interests in people. By talking to a scientist, I can dissect the society from another point of view; by talking to a writer, I get to see how dots are connected.

But I find an interesting phenomena. In this lonely society, lots of people translate genuine interests into romantic interests. I have to say that romantic interests are not genuine at all; they are more adrenaline tinted. People in urban lifestyles so seldom receive genuine interests that they run away from it, avoiding the possible commitment to a new relationship, avoiding being acknowledged as worthy attention, avoiding looking at oneself seriously......

You see, if you travel to tropical countries or places where apathy does not exist, you will find people warm and passionate about each other. That is genuine interest from one human to the other, not your typical sniffing tail instinct.

Are people afraid of others' care? Are people mistreated most of their lives that they don't believe one can be cared about by strangers? What are we afraid of?

Do we see an injured person merely another one at struggle? Do we see a dead human as usual as a dead animal to be slaughtered?

Perhaps, this apathy was created by stress to pursue everything the society expects from us, an established career, a large bank annount holdings, a big house, a good-looking family, a count-down watch, a waking bumb, a cancer tumor, a safe border, a convenient life style with no time out, a lake with water drained and a pair of shoes that can walk on and on and on, forever...

Monday, May 21, 2007

went to see Merce Cunningham's dance in Orange County last Saturday night. three repertoires in a night; to be honest, I didn't know what to think after the dance. I merely felt muscle in my legs twitching from wanting to move, in squares, in rigid turns and kicking.

I am the chosen lucky one who has paid for the cheapest seat yet earned the biggest rewards. I sat toward the back of the stage, straight facing Merce who's behind the curtains on his wheelchair. I watched him watching his dancers. He is so much more beautiful than the waves of limber young dancers, because of the history and the whole lot more movement in him . This is an artist who has been faithful to his art for more than 7 decades and still is in action. The bond, the trust, the freedom and the fluid, between an artist and his art.

One night passed, I long for dancing, starting to relive what I saw in my body. Two days passed, I get a glimpse of it. The art that you don't know how to interpret because it was not meant to be interpreted, but it lived in you for ever and deeper than you realized. It is in there, but one can not organize it, touch it or implement it. This is what I call "masterpiece." At the moment when you let go, it all come out of you from underneath the limbs.

I may not see Merce again, but I've got a piece of him. And it's still alive and growing, for ever.

Husband swung his head into my view field, saying: "this book looks interesting." He stayed for few more seconds as I flipped thru the pages. He saw some images that caught his eyes, pointing fingers: "look! what is this?" and "wow, look at that." I nodded as we went along, pretending nothing special is happening.

In my mind: "What happened to him? What have I done to you, my husband? Have I turned you into an artist? oh, I don't want you to be an artist... I just want you to be the you who supports art but doesn't make art. I can't stand marrying an artist..." on and on, the controlling me ignored the fact that Tim Howkinson's works often excite the artists out of everybody.

I looked at this man who understands me and my art more than anybody else, whose direct response to a piece weighs the confidence I have on the work, I wonder how much I know him. Sometimes I analyze his subconsciousness in a way that he didn't even feel the existence. I saw the artist in him who was caged in by the social expectation on men; I feel sorry for the incarcerated soul yet afraid of his power to consume me, not the physical me, but my little soul who is already consumed by my destructed mind and memory.

Family is a group of strange power struggle. I wish Mom and Dad and sisters were all here so I can tell them about Howkinson's Bat, but I am suddenly reminded of a segment from the movie "Pollock" when Pollock was exhilarated by the review on his show and the critic comparing him to Picasso. He was vigorously reading the article while families are talking, drinking and children running around; when seeking approval, they simply replied: "Is Picasso more important than your family?"

This scene pumps my tears, the tears of struggle, loneliness and inseparable bond of life and art, as if our hair grows so long that we often step on it. Fortunately for me who lives far away from home, I don't have to know what happened to the article clippings of my review that I vigorously sent to my family.

LAAA and the Getty offered us a free trip to see Tim Hawkinson's Zoopsia. The lovely knowledgeable Jamie spent a whole hour giving us a tour on the five new pieces by Hawkinson. I felt tremendously heavenly to be on this side of the country to be able to see Hawkinson often, so much that I would trade Chelsea for Hawkinson.

Outside the exhibition space, Getty set up the usual museum book-booth to help familiarize people with installation art, while they failed to inform viewers of the content of "Bat." As much as I appreciate Getty's offer and enjoy their new adventure on contemporary art, I still can't help bitching about this "educating the public" hypocrisy.

This is a very common phenomenon in museums. I mean, how difficult or unglamorous would it be for a museum to include a small description next to the piece? Why does it have to be people-who-paid-for-audio-tour's or people-who-did-online-research's privilege to understand the process behind the piece. Given most people in Getty are tourists or biblical-art-admirers, education or introduction to the appreciation of contemporary art must be especially emphasized.I can see how excited people will be if they learned of the process it takes to make Hawkinson a Hawkinson. People are generally excited about art involving everyday materials, yet the listing of media is simply not enough in a museum setting.I was so tortured that I wanted to stand by the piece and explain detailed process to everybody who was marveled by "wow, it's made of plastic bags" but still felt some missing links as to "how."ugh... it's like having an apricot stuck in my throat but was forced to swallow down. Perhaps it is time for me to change my personal definition of "education institutes."